Stamp collection guide for beginners

I was discussing some time ago with a friend who is collecting stamps and one of the first basic question was the eternal "why?". I meant "why do you collect stamps?" (and it was addressed to him).

The answer was a little amazing and it was the reason I started writing about stamp collection. This article is the first one, I have another one or even two ideas about that. His reason was that he tried to discover the world through stamps, they contain education information about sports, science, history, arts, animals, people, ritual, currencies and custom of different countries and their inhabitants.

It is said that the hobby of collecting stamps is one of the most interesting and popular in the world, I have to believe that because I don't share it. I am a beginner in this field, writing a stamp collection guide for people like me. So, the first thing I found out about stamps is that in most countries their value is very little, whathever they are used or new. The ordinary and common stamps do not become more valuable automatically after a time or more expensive as per the age. There are some types of valuable stamps, but their value is high from the beginning, they will always have a high value and in that cases time can possibly increase it. In most of the cases the value of the stamps is in the eyes of their collectors.

Usually a stamp collector can tell what kind of stamps will be display in other people's collections by simply looking at the presentation of the collection: when the presentation is done carefully and meticulously then there is a chance for some stamps to be valuable. The preservation of stamps into a collection should be kept in a proper manner: dry and protected by anything that can damage it (jncluding fingerprints) in the envelope of the album, assigning every stamp a catalogue number.

Even they are out of fashion, a beginner collector or philatelist can start collecting stamps from the received mails. I mean the old-fashion mails, with letter envelope and pieces of paper inside. In order to preserve the stamp and add it into your stamp collection first take it off from its envelope cautiosly, then rip the envelope surrounding the stamp, soak it into warm watter to disolve the adhesive lotion. After that, when the paper gets loosen, lift it out carefully using tongs, set the stamp on a piece of absorbent paper, let it dry and set down a tick object (preferably a book) to flatten it.

Some stamp collectors are specialized in collecting commemorative editions, those are special stamps wich are released for a  restricted time by the post office of their country. They can commemorate or celebrate special people or events, like the London Olimpics 2012 and the athlets competing there, artists, antiques, wild life, etc.

As I understand it, stamp collection is fun. If you make it a passion you don't need a guide to tell you what to do, you only need information that help you improving your skills and your methods of collecting.